Michael Tomasky: How the credulousness of mainstream media figures like Bob Woodward and Ron Fournier enables Republican extremism …. On Saturday, I wrote about what I called the conservative Republican “rage machine” and its poisonous impact on our politics. I argued that a number of prominent conservative thinkers and pundits …. were and are partly responsible for this problem as long as they sit there pretending it doesn’t exist.

But there’s another responsible group here, too: Just as today’s Republican extremists benefit from the silence of conservative pundits, they also gain from the credulousness of mainstream figures who keep pretending that today’s GOP is a responsible party …. So that when the GOP takes a radical position on the sequester and Barack Obama a reasonable one, both are accorded equal seriousness, even when facts have to be ignored to do so.

Bob Cesca: …. the sequestration issue has been one of those rare items that frustrate me to the point of being incapable of spending time on it. When I read about sequestration, my brain seizes. The stupidity of it all simply confounds me to the point of being speechless. For me, this is a shocking and rare predicament.

It’s not even the chronic brinksmanship — the reoccurring doomsday countdowns and the Republican-manifested economic sabotage that’s behind it all. It’s not the Keynesian in me who opposes the very notion of deficit reduction during a sluggish recovery. Granted, these are both points of irritation, but the characteristic of the sequester that ought to force us all into complete apoplexy and subsequent outrage-induced catatonia is the epidemic of ignorance regarding the status of the federal budget deficit.

Charles Pierce: The administration made a sharp play, releasing a list of how the upcoming Sequester Plague is going to affect each individual state. (You will note the predominance of red states with Republican governors in the Top 20. Here’s Kansas, the most enthusiastic lab rat in the Republican experiment, and it will lose $5.5 million in school funding and have around 8000 defense-related employees furloughed….) There’s some not unexpected bleating coming from John Boehner’s office, as they duck phone calls from the district and hide behind either the curtains, or behind Bob Woodward’s reputation, whatever’s handiest.

…..You wanted the White House to play tough. This is Ronnie Lott stuff right here.

Jonathan Bernstein: House Republicans held a quick session with the press to mainly make one point: They have no responsibility for sequestration….

…. This standoff isn’t going to be resolved by rhetoric. But it’s worth noting the extent to which Republican spin simply ignores that there was an election in November.

….. whether Boehner and the Republicans like it or not, Barack Obama was in fact re-elected on a platform of “balanced” deficit reduction — that is, new revenue and new spending cuts. Republicans have of course every right to oppose that, but it’s a little strange hearing them talk as if that campaign and election never happened.

Steve Benen: Did you happen to catch yesterday’s Capitol Hill press conference with the entirety of the House Republican leadership? House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and House Republican Conference Cathy McMorris Rodgers wanted to talk about this week’s sequestration cuts, but in the process, they offered a case study in how to insult Americans’ intelligence.

Dana Milbank: …. With just four days left to stop automatic spending cuts House Republicans had but one item on their agenda Monday: renaming a NASA facility in California.

You’d have to be on another planet to think that renaming NASA operations is Congress’s most pressing order of business this week. But for Republicans …. the naming proposal was taken up at a time when House Republicans are pursuing a considered strategy of deliberate idleness.

After months of fretting over the harmful effects of sequestration, as the automatic cuts are called, House Republicans have belatedly embraced the realization that if they do nothing at all, they will be rewarded on Friday with a 2.5 percent cut in all federal spending without coughing up a single dollar in tax increases. They have learned to stop worrying and love the sequester.

I really feel sorry for the children and the elderly. They are going to be hurting the most. But maybe lower income Republicans will finally realize the people they have been voting for all these years really don’t care about them. I know so many single mothers, college students, unemployed people, and military personnel who voted for Romney/Ryan. Maybe they will finally get it. Too bad Americans have to learn the hard way. So much for our recovery.

Now I know why the Whitehouse always does interviews with local news stations, local news stations are the heartbeat of any community. And for the Whitehouse to engage local news stations tells me that they can shape and deliver any message that they want to. The beltway pundits have no earthly clue about what is taking place in small communities across this country. And when President Obama goes out today to talk about sequestration he is going to lay the wood once again, and come tomorrow morning “Morning Joe” will bitch and moan about President Obama not leading. Well played Whitehouse, well played.

Morning TOD.
Is today the day for Chuck Hagel? I haven’t seen aanything specific as to when the vote will be held.

The original sequester called for Deficit Reduction. Period. It didn’t say entitlement cuts. The election was the USA declaring that benefits to beneficiaries of SS Medicaid and Medicare were NOT to be touched.

The MSM/GOPTP are twisting themselves into knots over this. Clearly, all they really want is all of our money going into their pockets.

I trust Barack Obama. POTUS will secure the necessary revenue from closing loopholes not looting his people.

When one segment of one chamber of the US Congress decides to cause deliberate suffering to the American people, intentionally undermine the economy, continually attempt to overturn a national election and consciously put the military at risk during a time of war, what is that called?
Somehow the word treason comes to mind. None of us can let the Republicans off the hook. Tell everyone you know and everyone you meet about the contempt in which the GOP holds Americans. The Republicans in the US House have declared war on America. People have to know this. They have to know this now and they have to hold it in their hearts when they go vote in 2014. Our great task is to inform people and then to get out the biggest number of Democratic voters for a midterm in the nation’s history. We can do this.

I received my RIF (Reduction in Force) notice a couple of days ago, so Friday is a deadline for me. I’ve been told that I’ll be furloughed one day per pay period for the coming months. I’m not worried because my wife and I make a pretty good living, but there will be hundreds of thousands of people that will have to worry about putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. If and when the sequestration does hit, I hope it will come to a quick end.

I’m sorry about that, Don. I hope that everyone who experiences hardship from this idiocy knows who did this to them. And I hope all of them vote. You cannot expect sanity, good government or common sense if you vote Republican. It’s like expecting a monkey to behave indoors.

Trust me jackie I’ll be just fine, but the strange thing is that I work with a bunch of Republicans that complain about being furloughed but yet they sit up there spending all their time blaming President Obama and watching Fox News.

Well good morning sunshiny O’s!!!!! How’s it going on the TOD stoop this great getting up day?

I’m listening to Jeremy Bird outlying OFA’s new effort, ‘Battleground Texas’, which is being unveiled today. They are going after the unregistered voters there, like they did in Florida. In Florida, they registered 400,000 by going door to door and encouraging turnout. They plan to do the same in Texas. There are hundreds of thousands of unregistered Latino, AA, and Asian voters. Also, there are tens of thousands who were registered but didn’t vote in 2012. Jeremy says getting the feet on the street for registration and then actually getting folks to the polls is OFA’s mission there. Very interesting stuff.

Also, Stephanie Cutter sent this in an email to OFA supporters. It’s an online briefing with Josh Dorner, from the ThinkProgress War Room at the Center for American Progress Action Fund., about the deficit.

“Then you’ll learn about the President’s plan to reduce the deficit in a balanced way. We’ll also talk about how you can get involved.
The briefing will be streamed live online this Wednesday, February 27th, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Bookmark this page now, and visit it shortly before the call begins: http://my.barackobama.com/Wednesday-Policy-Briefing

And this right here is why President Obama beat the Clinton machine in 2008 and Romney in 2012 is now serving his second term, the smarts to understand where the likely voters are and engage them. Already OFA is on the ground and running and in Texas of all places, they are thinking two and three elections down the road.

Bonehead speaking again. He’s at the mike now bemoaning PBO using the military as a prop in Newport News. Poor thing, still trying to make PBO a one term President. He’s not saying anything new except he did say he Senate should ‘get off their ass and do something’. So now Can’tor takes the mike, saying the same thing he said yesterday. They look and sound pretty desperate imo. Why are they talking? They’re making themselves look even more foolish. They’re still trying to make this about PBO doing a roadshow and saying he started it, did too, did not, did too, did not, na,na,na, na, boo boo. If they wanted to get out in front of PBO’s speech today, FAIL!

There’s a new poll coming out at 6:30 tonight, this may be the thing that gets the Pubs back to the table. That is unless, they still think there’s some valor to dying with your boots on.

“still trying to make PBO a one term President” – It is so weird that despite all the evidence to the contrary they really thought Mitt Romney was going to win – so quite realistic that they think they have another chance to turn it around! Maybe they think he’ll take advice from the Pope and resign?

This is First Lady Michelle Obama on GMA this morning. There is video when you click the link. She talked about Let’s Move, Hadiya Pendleton, the First Daughters and POTUS, etc.

As she celebrates the third anniversary of her Let’s Move! initiative, first lady Michelle Obama told “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts that the country is seeing real “movement” on the issue of childhood obesity.
“We’ve really changed the conversation in this country. When we started, there were a lot of people in this country who would have never thought that childhood obesity was a health crisis. But now we’re starting to see some movement on this issue,” the first lady told Roberts. “Our kids are eating better at school. They’re moving more. And we’re starting…to see a change in the trends. We’re starting to see rates of obesity coming down like never before.”

“Going to Target for me is like a dream, you know? That one time I went, you noticed it created a stir. I’m gonna do it again, doggone it. Next four years, I’m going out. I’m breaking out. I’m gonna disguise Bo. I’m gonna put on a coat. I’m gonna take a walk, and my agents won’t know a thing. Don’t tell ’em,” she joked.

The first lady, who turns 50 next year, has said her decision to sport bangs was her “mid-life crisis” and said she’s taking some time to get used to the new hairdo.
“My imagination has to be a little more limited, you know? Would I like to skydive? No, can’t do that,” she said. “Can I drive? I can’t drive. So there are a few things I can do, so why not cut my hair, put a little color in it, do a little something?”
“I’m embracing the bangs,” Mrs. Obama said. “I hope it’s good. My husband likes it. He’s really the only one that counts.”

Now Nancy Smash takes the mike, in rebuttal to Agent Orange. She says they’ve had a proposal on the table for awhile. She talks about furloughs under sequester and how they will impact jobs, even in the private sector. She said they’ve been gone 10 days, then will be gone Thursday at 3pm. She said they are a drive-by Congress. She said she told the Pubs that they can’t count what they gave into last year for negotiations this year. Then she had to remind them that revenue and appropriation bills must originate in the House. A per ‘School House Rock’ lesson, if you will. Smash said they’re ‘not kicking can down the road, they’re nudging a potato across the table by their noses’. Then she saluted PBO for taking it to the people. She said they do have day jobs and should be looking at other issues, immigration, gun control, etc. and not just using the avoidance behavior of Pubs. Grrrrr, go get ’em Nance, you da bomb.

My word, it’s hard to form a cohesive comment while listening at the same time. Hat tip to all stenographers across the land. That short paragraph I attempted above^^^^ was a bunch of ‘she said, she said’.

It is another language. Mostly abbreviated, phonetic sounds, words squeezed together, make up your own phrases for three to ten words at a time. You would love it. That is why it so difficult me to spell, type and write now days because my head is thinking faster than my fingers.
(Thanks for giving me a chance to plug the reason for my errors here)
I am trying to master sign language…not that is keeping my brains healthy. I do want to try two other languages.
Thanks to you guys here and Ms. Chips, the language of love is alive and thriving here.
Thank you for being so kind.

I hadn’t thought of sign language as a way to keep the old noggin tuned up. I’m taking tap dancing classes, I heard that’s another way to do it. something about sequencing. Also learning and reciting poetry does it as well. I think I’ll do a production at a poetry slam, where I cite poetry, to a tap dance, while signing it to the audience. Hmm, I’ll either end up at Barnum and Bailey’s circus, or laughed off the stage, tied up in a pretzel.

As we all know, Charles Pierce is fantastic at using a scalpel that is as effective as a battle ax. Although the main part of this post of his is about Dennis Rodman visiting North Korea, this opening paragraph is a howl, mainly due to the last sentence.

Analysts often opine that the most dangerous thing about the batshit-crazee regime in North Korea is its complete isolation, that its entire society exists within a closed feedback loop made up of a ludicrous cult of personality surrounding the Dear Leader of the moment, and a deep Stalinist cultural revulsion toward anything created in the West. In other words, it’s CPAC with modified Nehru jackets.

My sister says that Michael Moore is banging the war drum on Syria. Saying, many people are dying, why doesn’t this President do something, etc.
I told her, that we can’t affir another War!
If Michael Moore wants to spend another Trillion on another war, then we have to get rid of Medicare, because we can’t afford it.
So, while some Liberals say No to Drones and want to know every covert mission that the CIA has in the pipeline, some are asking for War!
Wow!
Gotta love the far left! Not!

I also think people are not confronting the issue of the possibility of Assad and chemical weapons and what an escalation might wreak. PBO is looking at the WHOLE ENCHILADA: what it means tactically and strategically for the U.S., Syria and the region, short-term and long-term.

Good morning, TOD!
Hello Chips!
99ts, sorry I could not stay up one second longer this morning. I had to be up early and running late right now. But it is so good to know that I can come here in the wee hours and there is someone here. I was memorized by the WH presentation of the Civil Rights concert in songs on You Tube. I am channeling and praying that on Wed. all will be well on the Voting Rights Act. Too many people’s lives and too much blood have been sacrificed to allow the haters to continue to steal, kill and destroy.

I have absolutely no words to express how jealousy and hypocrisy has once again shown its ugly head concerning our FLOTUS appearance on the Oscar. I did not watch it, but it seems to me she did them a favor! They should be thanking her…..
We expect the men to hate, but the women? Where is the sisterhood?
It just shows how insecure, immature and downright jealous they are of FLOTUS.
And all I have to say is keep doing what you are doing, FLOTUS and Dr. Jill Biden.
It may be too late for some of them, but hopefully their daughters and granddaughters will break the family curse and enjoy life like our FLOTUS and Dr. Jill Biden.
Most importantly, they are making a difference and serving with a purpose. They are examples I would gladly want my daughters and granddaughters to glean and take notes from. They look damn good doing it! They have hubands who love and support them.
FLOAT ON FLOTUS….FLOAT ON!
Have a nice day TOD!
We have a lot to be proud of and grateful for today and the next four years to come.
WE WON!

Looking at my twitter timeline, that Cesca posting is getting spread all over the place. Not sure I have ever seen a blog post get tweeted by so many different people. Maybe sombody in the media will actually read it and do something about the lack of education of the public on this matter….What am I saying, I must be delusional thinking that would ever happen.

Bringing this over from late last night. We need to instill this message, this confidence, in our girls and boys. It’s obvious to me that this message was reinforced in POTUS and FLOTUS from the day they were born; for that reason, despite the constant chatter of naysayers, they are able, with heads held high, to do their best. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Dunham and Robinson families.

A Must Read >>>>> The Thing About Being A Little Black Girl In the World: For Quvenzhané Wallis http://t.co/iC26W9gGFh

The thing about being a little black girl in the world is that even when you are the youngest person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, many people will use the occasion not to hold you up for all of the amazing things you obviously are, but to tear you down for the ways you don’t look like them, the ways your name isn’t their kind of right, the ways you don’t remind them of themselves, the ways you are not blonde or blue-eyed, as if those things could possibly matter when set against the otherwordly talent and beauty and brilliance you possess.​

The thing about being a little black girl in the world is that you come into it already expected to be less than you almost certainly are, the genius and radiant darkness you possess already set up to be overlooked, dismissed or erased by almost everyone you will ever meet.

The thing about being a little black girl in the world is that even when you are everything, some people will want you to be nothing. They will look at you through the nothing-colored glasses they will put on every time you enter a room. And the bigness of you, the outstandingness, the giftedness, will be invisible to them.

An elderly couple, who were both widowed, had been going out with each other for a long time. Urged on by their friends, they decided it was finally time to get married.

Before the wedding, they went out to dinner and had a long conversation regarding how their marriage might work. They discussed finances, living arrangements and so on. Finally, the old gentleman decided it was time to broach the subject of their physical relationship.

‘How do you feel about sex?’ he asked, rather tentatively.

‘I would like it infrequently’ she replied.

The old gentleman sat quietly for a moment, leaned over towards her and whispered –

It did it once last week, and I just started windows normally option. But today no mass, only option try safe mode or windows repair, tried Windows repair did nothing. I need to get all my stuff for my dissertation and articles of my CPU on to a USB or I am screwed. P.S. did you get my DM I sent about 8:00pm las nite?

Safe mode is currently not letting me access the articles saved in my bookmarks bar, nor the word documents. I on the verge of a mental breakdown and am going to put the laptop away for a few hours before I go to war w/ it again. I dont use Widows but its preloaded for when my CPU starts.

Flake, Alexander, Cochran Aye. Pretty certain now that hagel is in!
So Politico Not Even Trying To Be A New Org. is not reporting on this vote. Now that GOP/MSMTP has lost it is no longer news they care to notice.

It hasn’t gotten a lot of play. But when President Obama appears this afternoon at the Newport News shipbuilding yard he’ll be there with Republican Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA). Under ordinary circumstances, it’s not uncommon to appear with a President of the opposite party when he appears in your district. But it strikes me as a pretty big deal in the midst of such a charged partisan standoff.

For those are Irish and want to visit, here is a link:
Whether you have Irish in your blood or Ireland on your mind, you could win a trip to explore the Emerald Isle for yourself. Enter today for a chance to win a trip to Dublin among other exciting prizes: http://ancstry.me/XqiKYO

DOWNTON Abbey is introducing its first black character as part of a storyline about race relations in the 1920s.

The award-winning stately home drama is seeking an actor to play musician Jack Ross.

Casting notes were sent out to actors’ agents earlier this month. They describe Ross as “Male, 25-30. A musician (singer) at an exclusive club in the 20s.

“He’s black and very handsome. A real man (not a boy) with charm and charisma.”

Whoever lands the role should “ideally be able to sing brilliantly”. The notes add: “Overall he should be a very attractive man with a certain wow factor.” Jack Ross will play a key part in the fourth series of the hit TV saga alongside a string of other fresh faces.